Net News: 15th October 2012

You read about the study showing that the majority of YA book buyers are adults, yes? Dear Author shares the many reasons why they (as an adult) read YA. If you ever need to convince a non-YA reader to start reading it, this is the link to send them. (Or you could just memorise it all, Augustus style.)

Now that Dear Author have gotten you into a happy YA place, let NY Mag The Cut ruin it all with their scathing and degrading piece on what children’s and “new adult” books have to offer readers. Apparently we only read YA to soothe our womanly (sorry all you YA-reading men out there), troubled hearts with a tale of happily-ever-after. Erk. What have they been reading?

Does having a male protagonist mean a book is more likely to receive an award? And who doesn’t love a good pie graph? Lady Business offers an amazing examination of the gender-split across award-winning YA authors and protagonists.

Our very own Inky Awards – which are driven and decided by teenagers – are among those scrutinised, and (unlike most YA awards) both the majority of the authors and protagonists are female, and there’s also a fairly large representation of split-protagonist novels.

Express Media partnered with us to host a fabulous conversational event with YA author Leanne Hall (This is Shyness, Queen of the Night), and our very own Program Coordinator, Adele Walsh. Read in a Single Sitting has done a fabulous wrap-up of the discussion. Find out which Australian YA authors you should be reading, where the gaps are in the market for emerging writers, and why the Australian YA scene is so strong.

5. Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you can’t still write.

The Brothers Grimm fairy tales are reborn yet again, this time by the hand of YA superstar Philip Pullman. Whether it’s suitable for children is another matter entirely – in this interview, Pullman says he has kept the original Grimms violence as it is a necessary part of the tales.

JRR Tolkien fans (of which we hope there will soon be many more, with the impending theatrical release of The Hobbit) will be thrilled to hear he’s publishing a new book next year: The Fall of Arthur. (Yes, it’s about King Arthur).